‘But there’s no way he killed her,’ I say hotly. ‘Absolutely none. This whole thing is a charade. Your time? Our money? Need I go on? The poor bloody woman was dying. In case no one’s told that boss of yours, let me be the first to break the news. She had motor neurone disease. It strangles you to death. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine going to bed every night, listening to your body pulling the rug from under your feet? Can you imagine what it’s like waking up every morning, wondering whether you can still talk properly, still swallow, still put one foot in front of the other? Does any of that figure in this investigation of yours? Just nod. Just give me a clue. Does it?’

Brett is sitting back. He looks slightly pained, embarrassed even. My guess is that we’re still friends, at least I hope so, and once I’ve calmed down I hear myself apologizing.

‘No problem.’ He’s watching me taking a seat. ‘This whole thing is tricky. Like I said, we need to bottom it out. Your mate McFaul did himself no favours. He could have said yes to another interview. If he’s got nothing to hide, that would have been rational. People we arrest step into a whole new ball game.’

‘So, where is he? Where’s he gone?’

‘We’ve taken him to the custody centre in Heavitree. He’ll be booked in, photographed, fingerprinted, you know the way it goes. We’ll hold him for twenty-four hours at least, maybe thirty-six, maybe longer.’

‘And you really think he did it? Killed her? Be honest. Just tell me.’

Brett holds my gaze, says nothing, and for the first time it occurs to me that this search of theirs might have stumbled on a body.

‘You’ve found her? Is that it?’

He shakes his head, like he’s not going to tell me, and I turn away, trying not to imagine Christianne’s body rolling around in the surf.

‘I read that note she left you,’ he says at last. ‘You seem to have got really close to her. Would that be fair?’

‘Yes. Within limits.’

‘Limits?’

‘A couple of days, to be exact. Nobody was counting, least of all me, but that’s pretty much the time we spent together.’

‘Good mates, though?’

‘Yes. Being half-French helped. You tune into somebody, and hers happened to be a frequency I know very well. She’d made her own way in the world, done stuff, been brave, often very brave. She never boasted about it, barely mentioned it at all, but I knew what it had cost her.’

‘How?’

‘McFaul told me.’ I explain about their years together in Angola, children they’d loved and lost to the minefields, a particular run-in with a local warlord who’d taken a fancy to this comely young nurse. ‘She was very lucky not to have been raped.’